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The Telegraph

Emily Robinson interview: Meet the Harlequins back rower and carpenter out for Premier 15s glory

Emily Robinson always intended to take unpaid leave this week. So determined is the Harlequins back rower to help her side secure a first Premier 15s title at their third time of asking against Saracens on Sunday, that her day job as a carpenter simply had to take a backseat. Carrying out timber repairs and large-scale refurbishments on listed buildings, she decided, would not bode well ahead of the most high profile fixture in women’s top flight rugby. It was an easy decision, one that was based on past experiences in a breakout season which saw the 20-year-old included in England’s Six Nations squad earlier this year. Robinson laughs down the phone as she recalls her exhaustion at trying to balance England training camps and her day job last autumn. “I was absolutely shattered,” she says. “I’d be up at 6am for work the next day, finish at half four, then drive to training, train, get back home at 11pm, have a shower and do exactly the same the next day,” she says. “When you’re in the swing of it, you’re just determined to do it. But looking back, I think, ‘Oh my god, I was sleeping probably five or six hours a night, that’s nowhere near enough for an elite athlete.’” Such is the gruelling reality the majority of players in women’s rugby’s top flight still face. Ironically, Robinson actually never set out to be a carpenter. As a schoolgirl she remembers drawing a picture of Jessica Ennis-Hill, the former British Olympic heptathlon champion, “and wanting to be like her.” Carpentry and rugby, however, have become intrinsically linked throughout her life. She cites her early experiences at Hove Rugby Club, where she started playing with boys as six-year-old, as key in preparing her for a traditionally male vocation. “When I did start to go to work I was a bit like, ‘Woah, I really am the only girl and it is different.’ But I get on with boys really well. It’s quite a good balance really, it’s quite nice to be playing with girls in an all-girl team,” says Robinson, who draws similarities between her double life. “I do a lot of repairs on old timber, oak-framed houses, we’ve done a few new builds as well. It’s sort of the whole scope of building and carpentry. You get to know everything that’s going on – you might not be taking part in it all, [but] you can see the whole scope of what’s being done. Say if you’re a rugby player, you’re not just doing scrums, or looking at the breakdown, you get to play the full 80 [minutes] you get to do all of it.” Women working in the carpentry and building trade might still be something of a rarity, but at Harlequins, the profession is in fact a popular career choice. Robinson is one of three who featured in the side’s semi-final win over Wasps last weekend, with Katy Mew and Fi Fletcher also chiselling away at their rugby and nailing down another job. For Robinson, working in a male dominated profession requires extra musculature to navigate occasional sexism. “It doesn’t bother me,” she affirms. “Whether it’s things like, ‘Oh, are you sure you want to take that load?’ or ‘Can you do that?’ Most of the time it’s in good faith and I always choose to take it the right way.” It is a mature attitude, although there is a sense that Robinson’s days in the trade might already be numbered: being surrounded by nine full-time professionals at Harlequins has only wetted her appetite for professional rugby. “Once you get a taste of it, and once you realise you can improve so much when you’re in that environment because the standard is so high, you have to meet it, you can’t drop off,” she says. “If I get to the point where I am lucky enough to be a full time rugby player, I won’t discard what I’ve got in the locker. I’ll always have my carpentry qualifications and I think I can use them in other senses.”